The therapy produced a dramatic improvement in patients who had been unable to control their high blood pressure with several different drugs.

The study, published in the Lancet, involved 106 patients, with around half subjected to the radio wave treatment and half used as a control group.

Those allocated to receive renal denervation, as the technique is called, saw their blood pressure fall by an average 32 over 12 millimetres of mercury (mm Hg) over a period of six months.

The procedure works by inserting a catheter into a blood vessel near the groin and easing it up towards the kidney. The tube then delivers a burst of high-energy radio waves to deactivate renal nerves, which play a role in raising blood pressure.

At the start of the international trial the patients had a blood pressure reading of 178 over 97 on average – the first figure being the systolic pressure that coincides with each heartbeat, the second the diastolic "resting" pressure between beats.

The control group, who had similar blood pressure levels, was given a dummy version of the treatment, and their levels did not change significantly during the trial. Both treated and control patients were taking on average five different anti-hypertension medications.

"Catheter-based renal denervation can safely be used to substantially reduce blood pressure in treatment-resistant hypertensive patients," was the study's interpretation of the results.

Professor Murray Esler, from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute of Melbourne, Australia, led the research. "The impressive results show that this approach has the potential to become a truly revolutionary treatment," he said.

His colleague, Professor Alan Jardine, from the University of Glasgow, said: "This really is an incredibly promising study and the results really are groundbreaking. It's the most exciting development in this field for many years."